A giant Hershey bar brushed past me, waved, and stepped onto the escalator – and I’ll admit I did a double take. It was morning. Hadn’t had my coffee. And the prospect of breakfasting with a cast of human-sized Kit Kat bars and York Peppermint Patties at the Hershey Lodge was only just coming into focus.

Of course there were walking Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups here: Central Pennsylvania’s cocoa capital, a playland of amusement rides, endless sweets, and candy-themed attractions that run straight through the holidays, is where every kid’s chocolate fantasies can almost come to life.

The possibility, though, that there might now be something just as wonderful for the grown-ups to eat and drink around Hershey – Craft beer! Artisanal charcuterie! Genuine country cooking! – would be my most enduring double take from this family trip.

Never would I have guessed such a thing possible from our last visit eight years ago, when we found little more than a soulless gallery of national chains.